If you troll the Homebrew forums or groups on any social media sites, you will come across the the question; which makes better beer extract or all-grain? You will read a mixture of answers with many people stating all-grain makes better beer, and you will even have those who claim they can taste an extract beer every time. That’s a bunch of BS. Sorry, to those of you claim that, but I’m being 100% honest here. I am primarily an all grain brewer, and I prefer that process because it’s more fun for me. But I have done blind experiments where instead of saying to someone “Is this extract or all-grain?”, I have said instead removed that 50/50 shot by saying “I brewed 2 variations of this recipe, which do you prefer?” Then followed up with “Can you guess what the difference is?”. This will be news to any of my friends in my homebrew club reading this, but I sometimes brew extract beers when I’m pressed for time and don’t tell anyone they are extract. I have not once….not one single time EVER had one ask me “Is this an extract batch?” First I’m going to explain my personal feelings on the differences. Just remember though, because all-grain is more versatile, does not mean that it tastes better. In this write up I am talking strictly about flavor and aroma of the beer, not which method you can produce the most varied styles. In part 1 of this, I will discuss why some people perceive all-grain as being superior and some things you can do to up your game in extract brewing to make fantastic extract beers. In the next segment, I will go though my extract brewing process in detail for those who may be interested. (Note: Also check out the extract to grains conversion suggestions I have HERE. You may find it useful at some point)

First, why do people think all-grain beer tastes better? Well, in my opinion there are 3 major reasons some perceive a difference. The first is the complexity factor. No doubt about it all-grain brewing is more complicated. There are more steps and more places for things to go wrong, and when you have more steps and a more complicated process, you get a bigger sense of accomplishment when the product is complete. This can give you the perception that it’s “better”. Also, to be honest, when brewing extract you are limited to the beer styles you can accurately produce to the world-class level. However, that list of styles you can brew accurately is growing considerably with advances in extracts and specialty grains. Today you can replicate just about any classic style with extract and specialty grains. The addition of Munich, Marris Otter, and Rye malt extracts over the past few years has closed a huge gap for the extract brewer.

The second major reason is that most people start out with extract, at least their first few batches. There is a learning curve to getting to know the hobby. You can read about brewing, sanitation, fermentation control, and so on. But in actual practical application, those factors take time to get used to. They don’t take long, but they do take time to get the feel for and build your own process you are comfortable with. Once that is done, your beer will improve. For many brewers, this also happens to be the stage where they move to all-grain. They feel they have sanitation down, and the basics of boiling and fermentation process down. Once that comfort level hits, they look to all-grain. Well, little do they realize that their extract beers have also probably gotten better.

The third reason is water. We are told that if your water tastes good, you can brew with it. That is 100% true. As long as it’s de-chlorinated you will not get off-flavors from the chlorine, and if it’s not high in sulfur or dissolved metals it the beer will taste and smell fine. But there is a difference between good beer and great beer. Therefore, one needs to remember that when using extract, either liquid or dry, most of the ions in the water source that the malting plant used to make the extract, are inside the extract. So when you take your filtered tap water, and add extract…..you essentially are also adding mineral additions. Depending on your local water profile, this can be a slightly negative addition. But since most extract brewers are novices, we don’t want to complicate the matter with water chemistry right off the bat. So we say if it’s good water, it will make decent beer. Now, if you switch to all grain, all those minerals that were a slight detriment before, are now a required asset. Those water ions and minerals are benefiting your mash and your yeast and more importantly they are not in double quantities. Makes sense right?

Now, let’s take a look at some simple things you can do to up your game in the extract world. All of this is assuming you are already buying the most fresh product you can. Freshness of the extract is paramount and should have been a concern from day 1.

1. Go to full volume boil. This is probably one of the biggest changes you can do to make better extract beer. When people start out, they generally start with a 5 gallon pot and boil 3 gallons, then cool that 3 gallons of concentrated wort, add it to the bucket, and top up with fresh water. Well, you are not getting the best utilization of the hops this way, plus you end up darkening and at times over cooking the wort because of they concentration of sugars in the water. This is more true in the higher gravity beers. Going full volume boil, in a 7-10 gallon pot out on a propane burner will give you a better and more consistent product, without the excessive darkening and kettle caramelization normally associated with extract beers.

2. Get reliable fermentation temperature control. In both all-grain and extract brewing, fermentation temperature is essential to making consistent high quality beer. You cannot make world-class beer by by letting ambient temperatures ride. The best, and cheapest, methods for heating is to submerge your beer in a tub of water with an aquarium heater in it which you can set the temperature. For cooling, nothing beats an old chest freezer or refrigerator with a temperature controller. Controlling your temperatures of fermentation is just as important of a move as going full boil.

3. Consider switching from liquid malt extract (LME) to dry malt extract (DME). What I have found, especially for lighter beers like pilsners and cream ales (some of which people say are impossible to get right with extract…..NOT TRUE) that DME retains it’s color better than LME. The reason is that for reason’s unknown to me, LME oxidizes a bit easier than DME. I would imagine it has to do with the water. When LME oxidizes it darkens. This is natural and unavoidable. It also happens relatively fast. The second thing is that DME is easier to use and store. Store DME in an airtight container and any unused portions are going to stay fresh for weeks. LME is very difficult. You can adjust your recipes a lot easier using more exact quantities instead of being tied down to 3lbs at a time. You can use an odd amount of DME, like 2.75 pounds and store .25 pounds for a later batch or your yeast starters. With LME you are mostly tied to 3 or 3.3 pound increments. So unless you supplement with additional DME, you are limited. I personally use DME in almost my extract beers. Just word of caution though, 3 pounds of LME will not give you the same gravity as 3 pounds of DME. You will end up with a higher gravity with DME because of the water weight. So make adjustments accordingly in your brewing software.

4. You MUST use specialty grains. Specialty grains are going to add dextrins, flavors, and complexity you will not get from extract only beers. A small amount of carapils in every batch will benefit your head retention as well.

5. Use distilled or Reverse Osmosis water. The reason is the same as I explained above. Extract already has the water salts from the brewer’s process in the extract. Both DME and LME have these salts. So avoid doubling up your water’s salts by using distilled or RO water.

6. Learn to utilize the late extract method. By adding only 1/4 of all your extract at the start of the boil, and reserving the last 3/4 for the last 15 minutes of your boil. You will avoid kettle caramelization and most importantly, darkening. This is extremely important if you are trying to brew light beers, like cream ales or pilsners. This does affect your hop utilization, so be sure you tell your brewing software that X amount of extract is late addition extract. The software will adjust your IBU’s. For stouts and porters, or other dark beers, late extract is not as important but I feel it will benefit the beer in flavor.

7. Pitch enough yeast. This is another common issue I see with extract beers, even when experienced brewers toss together a quick extract beer. Since the extract brewing process is so much easier, they tend to neglect the care they put into yeast pitching in their all-grain beers. I’ve read it before and seen it many times. I’ve read people say they only do starters for their all-grain beers and don’t worry about with extract. I ask….why? The product you get from extract wort and all grain wort is essentially the same. You should treat it the same if you expect excellent results. So consider making yeast starters or at minimum rehydrate and/or pitch a double packet when using dry yeast.

If you do those 7 things, over time, your extract beers will beat out quite a few all-grain beers. I promise you that. In part 2, I will show my extract brewing method. It’s really nothing Earth shattering or different from many other people. But if you are reading this, you may find my method of some value.

If there is one thing homebrewers are, it’s frugal. Well, most of us anyway. Well, this is an easy post for those who like to use hop shots. If you are not familiar with hop shots, they basically extract the hop resins with some process that is mysterious to me using CO2 from the cone. Look, I personally don’t care how it works. All I know is it does. Some craft brewers have moved to using hop extracts for their bittering in highly hopped IPAs just for the purpose of getting a lot less kettle loss due to water being absorbed into the plant matter. Hops shots make sense in this application since you are just looking at bitterness, not flavor or aroma. Hops shots themselves will run you about $4 per 5ml syringe on most homebrew supply shops. What if I told you that you can buy a can of co2 hop extract that is the exact same stuff for $21 per 100g? What if I told you that a 100g container will make you roughly 40 of the 5ml syringes at home? What if I also told you, that you can buy empty syringes and caps on Amazon for a few bucks and that in the end you can make your own hop shots for about $1 each? Well, if you or you and your friends use hop shots, I’m sure you are thinking “Tell us more!” That is just what I am going to do.

The first step is to buy your ingredients and equipment. That would be your hop shot extract, which you can buy at Yakima Valley Hops for about $21 for a 100g can. You can also buy their hop shots as well, but why would you when you are still going to save money this way? You also want to buy syringes. You can get 5ml or 3ml syringes. I chose 3ml because I got a box of 100 for under $10 and 50 caps for under $5. I figured I can either use 2 hop shots or 1 depending on my beer style. I also found the 3ml syringes to be a better value. Just don’t forget to buy the caps, they don’t come with the syringes unless you buy them that way, and they tend to be more expensive together than separate. Not sure why that would be. So to recap, below is what you need to buy.

Total investment (not including shipping $34-$45 depending the syringe). I split the cost with a fellow Manty Malter member and each of us got 25 hop shots for about $18 each. Not a bad investment.

In order to make the extract easier to work with, you will want to soak it in warm water, just like malt extract. From there, you can just open the can and fill the syringes fairly easily. Essentially that’s it. Just fill them then cap them. The hop shots should remain good in the fridge for up to 5 years if you don’t have any air in the syringe itself. I did have a few that had a tiny bubble of air in them, so I marked those to be used first.

Sometimes there is a product that comes along that I just think is pretty cool. This is one of those times. I have been hearing on some homebrew forums about a company called Cascade Beer Candi Company and they have some uniquely flavored invert sugar products. They have all sorts of invert sugar products ranging from plan blonde and dark, to flavored items like blood orange, toasted coconut, and molasses and Thai ginger.

You can use this product as you would any Belgian candi sugar, or you can add it to the fermentor or even for bottle or keg conditioning. The containers are said to be sterile so contamination shouldn’t be much of a concern. If you are a bit leery about that, you can add it late in the boil or at flame out, but some of the aroma and flavor will be lost during fermentation. I brewed 2 beer with this product so far, a Blood Orange Gose (Extract Version) and a Thai Ginger Porter (Extract Version)……..Click the links for the recipes. I think that the blood orange syrup was very well done and doesn’t taste artificial like the other fruit flavorings on the market. This smells and tastes similar to orange zest. The molasses and Thai ginger has real bits of ginger in there, so you know this is not some artificial flavorings added to taste like ginger…this is ginger. Even though I used it at flame out, the ginger character comes through nicely in the porter. It’s not over powering in my opinion.

If this is a product you are interested in, the homebrew supply shop that I work at carries them and we have %5.99 flat rate shipping on all items under 27 pounds. So check it out here. If you want to buy direct, here is the link to Cascade Beer Candi Company.